MOORPARK : City Fails to Find a First-Time Buyer for Home

After six months of trying, the city of Moorpark has given up on finding a qualified moderate-income buyer interested in purchasing a three-bedroom house owned by the city.

It is the first time that the city has tried to sell a house through its first-time home-buyers program. The house was one of five meant for first-time buyers that were built in 1990 by Griffin Homes in its roughly 400-home Campus Hills development.

To assist in purchasing the houses, the city at the time offered a $30,000 loan to each of five families. In December of last year, however, the city learned that a bank was about to foreclose on one of the homeowners, and it purchased the house--valued at about $200,000--for slightly more than $180,000, Senior City Planner Deborah Traffenstedt said.

Since March, the city has tried to find qualified buyers for the house, Traffenstedt said. To qualify, buyers had to show that they had never owned a home before and that they had a moderate income--roughly $68,000 for a family of four--she said. Five families applied for the program, but none qualified.

“There were various reasons that they didn’t qualify,” she said, adding that the biggest obstacle was their inability to qualify for a bank loan.

The city will now open the bidding to all comers and plans on selling the 1,326-square-foot house for about $190,000 to $200,000. The city has spent $6,200 since May for insurance, utilities and making improvements. Interested buyers should contact the city at 529-6864.